State of New York vs Trump, et al - the civil fraud case against the Trump Organization

[bob]

So he can or can't say anything about the Judge's staff?

It returns the defendants to a time before the gag order was issued, that is, there's now no prohibition against commenting about the court's staff.

AP:

Friedman questioned Engoron’s authority to police Trump’s speech outside the courtroom — such as his frequent gripes about the case on social media and in comments to TV cameras in the courthouse hallway. He acknowledged that judges often issue gag orders, but said they’re mostly used in criminal cases where there’s a fear that comments about the case could influence the jury.

Which is a fair point: there's no jury to taint. But it also ignores the stochastic terrorism aimed at the court's staff.

[sugar magnolia]

So he can or can't say anything about the Judge's staff?

It returns the defendants to a time before the gag order was issued, that is, there's now no prohibition against commenting about the court's staff.

AP:

Friedman questioned Engoron’s authority to police Trump’s speech outside the courtroom — such as his frequent gripes about the case on social media and in comments to TV cameras in the courthouse hallway. He acknowledged that judges often issue gag orders, but said they’re mostly used in criminal cases where there’s a fear that comments about the case could influence the jury.

Which is a fair point: there's no jury to taint. But it also ignores the stochastic terrorism aimed at the court's staff.

Thanks. Our gag order was in a civil case with no jury, too, so I'm trying to understand it in that context and not having much luck. I've also come to realize there is a large amount of legal stuff that doesn't seem logical to me.

[bob]

Our gag order was in a civil case with no jury, too, so I'm trying to understand it in that context and not having much luck.

Without knowing the details, civil gag orders generally are used to prevent the spread of confidential information or the tainting of witnesses.

"For completeness," here's the ruling in its entirety:

[Chilidog]

Can the staff sue Trump for defamation?

[p0rtia]

So he can or can't say anything about the Judge's staff?

It returns the defendants to a time before the gag order was issued, that is, there's now no prohibition against commenting about the court's staff.

AP:

Friedman questioned Engoron’s authority to police Trump’s speech outside the courtroom — such as his frequent gripes about the case on social media and in comments to TV cameras in the courthouse hallway. He acknowledged that judges often issue gag orders, but said they’re mostly used in criminal cases where there’s a fear that comments about the case could influence the jury.

Which is a fair point: there's no jury to taint. But it also ignores the stochastic terrorism aimed at the court's staff.

Thanks. Our gag order was in a civil case with no jury, too, so I'm trying to understand it in that context and not having much luck. I've also come to realize there is a large amount of legal stuff that doesn't seem logical to me.

FWIW, I also heard that the judge said the gag order "Broke NY State Law." Haven't been able to track down which law, yet.

[W. Kevin Vicklund]

As always, "can" and "have a reasonable chance of going to trial" are very different concepts.

[bob]

Can the staff sue Trump for defamation?

Possible but not probable.

[p0rtia]

Engoron denies TFG's motion for mistrial.

Arguments "made in bad faith."


https://iapps.courts.state.ny.us/fbem/D ... ystem=prod

[realist]

Engoron denies TFG's motion for mistrial.

Arguments "made in bad faith."


https://iapps.courts.state.ny.us/fbem/D ... ystem=prod

Not the best writer in the world but he get the point across.

[W. Kevin Vicklund]

I have a feeling the judge is going to be very open to including sanctions in the final ruling...

[p0rtia]

Screenshot 2023-11-17 at 5.45.23 PM.png (270.91 KiB) Viewed 4182 times

[chancery]

I have a feeling the judge is going to be very open to including sanctions in the final ruling...

Maybe.

FWIW, though, I think that Judge Engoron is too quick on the sanctions trigger. Lots of good judges would not have sanctioned Trump's lawyers for his pre-trial summary judgment motion, despite the fact that it reargued issues that had been previously ruled on, sometimes more than once.

Now, the current mistrial motion, based on bias, passing notes, and the principal clerk's contributions to her own campaign, strikes me as complete garbage and in fact quite offensive.

But those factors are usually not enough to justify sanctions if the motion doesn't impose a significant burden on the court's time and resources. Since this was the first time that Trump's lawyers had filed a written motion on these grounds, and since it was relatively straightforward for the court to reject it, I'm not sure it would have been a good idea to issue sanctions. And he didn't.

It's almost guaranteed that Trump will raise the issue again in a motion for judgement after the close of trial. But this is routine, to make sure that the issue is preserved for appeal based on the full trial record, and not just the first half of the case. Today's ruling that there was no good faith basis for making the motion could be used to justify sanctions when (it's virtually inevitable) the issues are raised again after trial. But I'm not sure that it would be a great idea.

[RTH10260]

Trump unleashes outrage at court clerk online barely an hour after gag order paused
New York judge temporarily lifted gag order, opening window through which Trump could vent his unrestrained feelings

Ed Pilkington in New York
Fri 17 Nov 2023 15.40 CET

Barely an hour after a gag order prohibiting Donald Trump from commenting about court staff at his civil fraud trial in New York was temporarily lifted, he was at it again – unleashing a blitzkrieg of social media outrage at a clerk who has become the lightning rod for the former president’s rage.

On Thursday afternoon a New York appeals court judge, David Friedman, paused a gag order that had been placed on Trump last month. The move opened a window through which Trump could vent his unrestrained feelings.

The opportunity was seized upon almost immediately. An hour after the lifting of the gag order, one of Trump’s inner circle, senior adviser Jason Miller, took to X, the social media site formerly known as Twitter.

“There’s no way President Trump can receive a fair trial when Democrats are sending partisan attack dogs to do their dirty work,” he said. Then he linked to a website devoted to attacking Allison Greenfield, the clerk who has been assisting the judge in the case, Arthur Engoron, at the $250m civil lawsuit trial in which the fate of the former president’s New York-based family business, the Trump Organization, hangs.

The site labels Greenfield a “Democrat operative and hack” and accuses her of “unethical partisan Democrat activities”. It also suggests that Engoron should be “investigated and removed from the bench”.

Not long after that, Trump himself entered the fray. On his own social media platform, Truth Social, he attacked Greenfield as a “politically biased and out of control, Trump-hating clerk”.

He also accused Engoron of driving businesses and jobs out of New York City, and derided Letitia James, the New York attorney general bringing the suit against him, as a “worldwide disgrace”.



https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/202 ... edia-posts

[Resume18]

"Trump-hating clerk . . . ”

Translated into rational: Patriotic American.

[p0rtia]

So I've read Engoron's denial of the motion for mistrial. I'm struggling to understand his explanation of the law clerk's political contributions. He says:

Screenshot 2023-11-17 at 7.48.12 PM.png (118.13 KiB) Viewed 4090 times

I get stuck on 1. the $500 donation limit "does not apply to...contributions to his or her own campaign," and 2. "When deducting the price of the tickets [to campaign events], the remainder is still well below the ethical and legal permissible annual limit."

No. (1) seems clear enough, but no. (2) is confusing--the "still" makes no sense to me. In context, I would expect the sentence to read "...the remainder is well below..." (removing "still").

So I checked the defense motion, which clarifies that the total amount of donations was over $3,000 for 2021 and $900 for 2022. They then list the detail of each contribution the law clerk made for those two years (https://iapps.courts.state.ny.us/nyscef ... 5Oq9DwXg== pages 10 thru 13)

Here's the thing: I'm not seeing where donations were made to herself, or where expenses were for tickets to political events. I'm gonna assume that no. (1) above is correct, but I'm wondering how Engoron knew to whom the expenditures went.

Anybody?

[chancery]

Presumably he asked her.

I'm not very happy about this reference to facts not in the record. It's sloppy and defensive.

I don't think that the issue is relevant to the litigation, which is probably a better basis for denying the motion.

[W. Kevin Vicklund]

My comment about sanctions was not restricted to this isolated incident. I'm looking at the overall behaviour throughout the course of the trial - past, present, and future.

[Volkonski]

Stefanik still looking for a VP nomination.

Stefanik: New York judge ‘wrongfully denied’ Trump mistrial request in fraud trial

https://thehill.com/regulation/court-ba ... press.coop

Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-N.Y.) added to her previous ethics complaint against the New York judge presiding over former President Trump’s civil fraud case, alleging he “wrongfully denied” the request for a mistrial due to bias.

“A week ago, I filed an ethics complaint against Manhattan Judge Arthur Engoron for his partisan antics, bias, and railroading of President Trump,” she wrote on X, formerly known as Twitter. “Today, I’m supplementing my ethics complaint against Judge Engoron with examples of even more of his egregious misconduct after he just wrongly dismissed President Trump’s motion for a mistrial.”

In his denial of the request Friday, Engoron said Trump’s attorney’s arguments were “utterly without merit.”

The mistrial request alleges that Engoron was biased and committed judicial misconduct, including comments demeaning Trump and the trial itself. Engoron said Trump’s team was cherry-picking comments.

[Suranis]

On the stand, Blowtart pulled a piece of paper from his pocket, tried to read it revealing that it had his powerful disclaimer on it, and tried to give it to the Judge.

Things went downhill after that.

[Kendra]

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics ... b0af&ei=41

In emotional testimony Tuesday morning, McConney rattled off his many legal woes — and may have disclosed a new one. He said that he received a subpoena from the Southern District of New York (SDNY) some two hours before he was supposed to testify. McConney has been called to testify twice in the civil fraud case and once in the criminal case, and it is unclear before which stint on the witness stand he claims to have received a subpoena.

A spokesperson for SDNY said he could not confirm or comment on a subpoena.

What interest federal prosecutors may have had in McConney is unclear. In 2018, the office prosecuted Trump’s former fixer Michael Cohen’s prosecution for campaign finance violations for disguising hush-money payments to pornographic film actress Stormy Daniels. Prosecutors said that Cohen made those payments through his shell company at Trump’s “direction,” in order to silence her alleged tryst with the then-candidate before the 2016 presidential election.

[bob]

"For completeness": former controller/hand-of-the-Weisselberg/unindicted-coconspirator Jeffrey McConney.

[chancery]

https://twitter.com/lawofruby/status/17 ... 9087604087

Lisa Rubin
@lawofruby
NEW: In a brief today opposing the stay of the NY gag order, a lawyer for Judge Arthur Engoron attached an affirmation by a court officer who works as a captain in the Judicial Threats Assessment Unit. And it is more alarming than you could imagine. 1/


After the October 3 Truth Social post that provoked the initial gag order, the threats to Engoron and the law clerks increased “exponentially” and include “hundreds of threatening and harassing voicemail messages that have been transcribed into 275

He explains that the law clerk’s personal email and cell phone have been compromised—and that the threats, some of which he excerpts, are considered to be credible and serious, not hypothetical or speculative. 3/

https://iapps.courts.state.ny.us/nyscef ... r30v8AXw==

[Slim Cognito]

I hate saying or thinking this but it's just a matter of time before trump gets somebody (else) killed. I hope those transcriptions do the trick.

[p0rtia]

https://twitter.com/lawofruby/status/17 ... 9087604087

Lisa Rubin
@lawofruby
NEW: In a brief today opposing the stay of the NY gag order, a lawyer for Judge Arthur Engoron attached an affirmation by a court officer who works as a captain in the Judicial Threats Assessment Unit. And it is more alarming than you could imagine. 1/


After the October 3 Truth Social post that provoked the initial gag order, the threats to Engoron and the law clerks increased “exponentially” and include “hundreds of threatening and harassing voicemail messages that have been transcribed into 275

He explains that the law clerk’s personal email and cell phone have been compromised—and that the threats, some of which he excerpts, are considered to be credible and serious, not hypothetical or speculative. 3/

https://iapps.courts.state.ny.us/nyscef ... r30v8AXw==

Thanks! And, wow.

[p0rtia]

Pro tip: If you ever pop on to Twitter to see if the NY Fraud trial is in session today, do NOT do a search for "Engoron".

Holy shit.